


Potentiality

by Exxact



Series: Tango: An Imperial Canon Divergence AU [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Sweethearts, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, Galennic - Freeform, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Murder, Older Man/Younger Man, Plot With Porn, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Pre-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Tarkrennic - Freeform, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8739805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exxact/pseuds/Exxact
Summary: "Orson is terrified, more frightened than he can ever remember being in his life, but he cannot look away.  Orson doesn’t believe in fate, or the Force, or anything else Galen’s told him for years is reserved for the Jedi alone, but if he did, he would believe that it was embodied in this man, this man who is furious in his silence, nakedly determined, who wields no lightsaber but who radiates a power that makes Orson’s skin tingle." The rise of Orson Krennic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. 
> 
> See the end for commentary notes.

+

  
A heaviness clenches the air over Grange, thick and rich and promising. While the planet wasn’t known for particularly heavy summer rains, a passing storm system had drenched the whole of the Colliphe Valley for the past standard week, leaving sopping fields and flooded pastures in its wake.

The Krennics and their neighbors had borne the conditions well, though not all had been so fortunate. Thus, it was with relief that Mrs. Krennic could send her boy outside to stretch his legs while she prepared ration packets and gathered old clothes to rip and stitch into blankets. Armed with his father’s blaster pistol and instructions to stay beside Erso’s son, Orson narrowly avoids his mother’s insistent hands as he dodges a proffered cap and jacket, slamming the door behind him.

Outside is plagued by the same stillness, the same lifelessness that Orson had felt sinking into him all throughout the quiet of the last week. He immediately spots Galen in the darkening fog, waving from his place atop the barn’s roof before dropping his book and slipping effortlessly down and into a full-bodied run towards the hill that divided their families’ properties. Orson follows, thrumming with all the energy hidden behind his usual sullenness. The muted green of the Erso family’s grain fields glows deeper as the horizon darkens, and Orson feels as though he is chasing the orbit of Grange itself, legs pumping to catch up to Galen’s stride. When he does, toppling them both into the grass sends a bolt of lightning through his chest, and he feels as though he’s finally himself for the first time since the rains started.

“I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow.” Galen murmurs, his voice low, emotionless.

Orson snorts. “Well, I can’t believe we’ll still be planetside! Brentaal’d better be different from the Valley and it’s nerf shit. Why couldn’t they have built the Academy in orbit like the one on Corellia is?”

Galen turns to look at him, eyes bright and guileless, his shy smile making him appear younger than his and Orson’s fifteen years. “I kind of like nerfs.”

“You _would_ ,” Orson replies, pulling a face. He splays out against the damp grass and glares at Galen. “Stupid, stinking, brainwashed beasts of burden. Just like the people who raise them and don’t want more from life.”

Galen’s downturned mouth suggests that he’d like to argue against Orson’s statement. Instead, he rolls over and sighs, arms grazing Orson’s and raising the flesh underneath his tunic.

“That’s not why the Republic chose us for the Futures Program.” Galen’s voice is low, traipsing over vowels in its quiet frustration. “Not because we’re better than everyone. They believe that we’ll grow more readily with its influence and return here to help improve Grange with what we’ve learned. The Republic can give us the sense of larger connection that we’re looking for, but we have to be receptive, conscientious of all lives.”

Orson laughs. “Now I know why Ric calls you that-you really do talk like a protocol droid!”

Galen may have been teased at their dumb farm school because sure, he talks like an old Coruscanti holo and reads a lot and his hands and legs shake after butchering nerfs, but it was those little peculiarities that had always drawn Orson towards him. Being best friends with the guy everyone had taken to calling “Droidfucker” wasn’t always an easy ride, but it was worlds better than listening to who was going to do what to who on their land when they inherited it. With Galen, there was always a promise of _more_ , and Orson was willing to listen to rants about planetary geology and whispers of buggery to have a taste of it. He knew, even if he didn’t understand why he sought the highest marks or give two shits about the Force and the Jedi that his mother cursed under her breath, that _more_ was what he wanted.

“I didn’t mean it,” Orson says after a moment, a curl of fear in his belly feeding on the silence. Galen turns his face back with a smile so genuine, curving against the sharp bones of his face, that Orson can’t resist kissing it, because maybe the buggery rumors are true.

“I know,” Galen whispers against his lips, hot and soft. “And it’ll be different there, at the Academy. We’ll still be together, but it’ll be better. I know we won’t be disappointed.”

Orson sits up, thrusts his face to the sky to catch the last rays of fog-dimmed sun before it becomes too dark to see. “We can only hope, huh?”

Galen follows suit, tucking himself against Orson, his breaths deep and even, placated.

 

+

  
Their final conversation on the hill lingers at the front of Orson’s thoughts for years afterwards. Galen, even if he’d cried himself sick at the transport stop the next day, fits into the Academy’s workings like a baby nerf at its mother’s teat. He’s still poked fun at, pushed around, fought over by Orson for his manners and his books, but it’s nothing like it was back on Grange. The Academy is angry, a sea of envy sweeping within the lower cadets as they hear of a child queen defeating the entire Trade Federation, strength incarnate beside a cowering Republic.

“Your mind, Galen,” Orson hisses as he presses InstaHot packs against the twin bruises along each of their arms, strokes upwards to bind the cut under the leg of his trousers. “They wish they had half of your mind. They’re afraid of us, afraid of who we are together and what we can become.”

“I don’t want them to be afraid,” Galen replies, eyes fluttering shut as Orson roughly kisses him quiet.

Galen declares a science concentration early at the end of their second year and comes to shine under Professor Onneffee’s instruction in environmental geophysics. There’s murmurs of a publication full of words Orson doesn’t understand by the time their fourth year begins and Galen confirms it between the frantic grind of their bodies in Orson’s bed, the lights shuddering above them, blankets tight around their hips.

Orson shatters a meteor sample in Physical Geochemistry after the havoc of an exam, nearly crashes one of the modified V-19s even after spending a dozen more sessions on the simulators than everyone else in his Flight Protocols class, fails Political Security prelims with scores so low that he’s forced to meet with Dean Pysclla. The only class he excels in is Security Protocols-a fate worse than death to anyone who doesn’t want an existence supervising droids. The reports he snatches glimpses of on Pysclla’s desk are arrogant in their descriptions of him, mocking in their superiority. They eat away at Orson—“Trigger-happy,” “Lacks foresight, “Unmotivated”—who, once painted as such, is too stubborn to prove them incorrect.

His fellow cadets seem to relish in the spectacle, a scholarship boy falling to the bad. Orson finds himself tolerated, finding a sort of camaraderie with others who struggle to weave into the patterns of the Academy’s fabric. Galen is far too much of a gentleman to remind him that he passes each class through bluffing and natural ability alone, but every time Orson catches sight of his roommate’s certificates, he feels a shard of finality sink deeper into his chest. His mother’s disdainful face on holidays fails to drive him, the prospect of returning to her barren house not even enough to force him into effort. Perhaps, in some remnant of childhood invulnerability, he simply doesn’t believe such a fate could befall him, he who is meant for greatness, who craves it even as he appears to everyone else to race away from it.

Orson finds himself awake until the early hours of the morning rotation more often than not, a restless emptiness swelling inside of him. He is waiting, he is preparing for some immense moment that the Academy and its classes cannot ready him for; no, he will need to rely upon himself alone to find renown.

Galen is right, in the end. He isn’t disappointed by the Futures Program.

He’s betrayed by it.

 

+

  
The very twist of Orson’s lips into a grin seems to echo in the empty halls, but he makes sure to slam the door of Professor Proosnik’s Core Worlds Culture class behind him for good measure. He’s not sure where he should be now, but he certainly isn’t going to Dean Pysclla’s office like Proosnik told him to. It’s the hour before lunch for upper cadets and there’s a fair chance that he could still sneak into the lower’s lunch hour and get double portions to trade with Wys later for cigarettes. He could go see if Galen’s still in lab, or if Onneffee will let—

Just as he rounds the corner, still uncertain, the choices before Orson are taken from him.

Dean Pysclla stands at the end of the hall he’s walked into, her cape and proud height partially obscuring the silhouette of someone beside her. As she looks up and turns to inspect the source of the footfalls, the figure is revealed.

The man isn’t handsome, despite his regality and bearing in robes that even Orson knows are reserved for Galactic Senate members. He’s striking, tall and pale and hauntingly thin beneath the billowing fabric that somehow does not overwhelm him. His lips are nearly invisible, cheeks sunken and free of flesh in a way that reminds Orson of the various skulls in Galen’s classrooms. His neck is taunt, jawline smoothly sweeping back into greying auburn hair without the slightest curl. There isn’t even a suggestion of softness to him despite the sparsity of his features, not even the tiniest curve to his nose or roundness to the shell of his ear. The man seems to drag Orson’s gaze back to his face as though catching him in a tractor beam, and the stinging tears at the periphery of his vision are not enough to cloud the intensity of the eyes he finally meets.

They are a common enough blue, but they are transformed by the man who possesses them. There’s a fire in him that radiates through his eyes, deep and hot and hidden. Orson is terrified, more frightened than he can ever remember being in his life, but he cannot look away. Orson doesn’t believe in fate, or the Force, or anything else Galen’s told him for years is reserved for the Jedi alone, but if he did, he would believe that it was embodied in this man, this man who is furious in his silence, nakedly determined, who wields no lightsaber but who radiates a power that makes Orson’s skin tingle.

Orson tries to back himself up, eyes still locked with the man as though he were trying to intimidate a territorial bull nerf. The unshed tears retreat and leave him blinking wildly, a wave of nausea rising through his chest as he otherwise refuses to break eye contact.

Pysclla’s mouth presses into a dignified frown, her lekku contracting in the way that always makes Krennic want to laugh at the ridiculousness of them. “Cadet Krennic! Back to class! And don’t even think about loitering with Erso, boy!”

Orson gives a halfhearted salute, eyes desperate against the man beside her. He remains expressionless beside Pysclla, continuing to meet Orson’s gaze until he finally turns and rounds the corner once more, walking in place once he passes their line of sight while he watches them out of the corner of his eye.

Pysclla smiles indulgently, her attention fixed once again on the man. “I apologize for this rascal, Lieutenant Governor Tarkin. Sixth years and their hormones are always a trial, but this one’s been an especially tricky case.” Prysclla gives a high, false laugh at her own cruelty. “A complete lack of discipline, even after four years at the Academy. It would be impressive were it not completely disgraceful.”

Tarkin nods, clearly not caring. “Yes, boyhood whims. Now, Mistress Pysclla—I address you correctly, do I not?—you were detailing the particular flight simulators your students utilize. Very interesting-you said that they were unique to Brentaal’s Republic Military Academy, not found anywhere else?”

Pysclla laughs again, her irritating falsetto cut off by the hiss of her office door shutting behind them. Orson’s immediate instinct tells him to race to the public fresher that shares a wall with Pysclla’s office and press his ear against it to hear Tarkin once more, but suddenly the lowers are marching past and Wys and Arcas shove into him, pushing themselves out of the tide.

“Whoreson, old buddy, old pal! I’ll trade you a cig if you tell me what the prompt is on the CWC quiz.”

Orson blinks against the blare of Wys’s voice. “Didn’t go.”

Wys adopts his best attempt at parental frustration, the ranks of the lowers thinning into a trickle as the uppers are released from class. “Whoreson, Whoreson. Should’ve known.”

When Orson doesn’t bother to give his usual huff at the nickname, Arcas rolls his eyes, winding himself into a tangle of limbs around Wys.

“Hells, you really should’ve known. Too busy getting all up in that sweet mouth in the fresher here.”

Wys lets out a mournful sigh, patting Arcas on the ass to a chorus of whistles from a few straggling uppers. “No, he waits until I’m half asleep to smuggle him in. Arcas, my love, I entrust you with the task of finding my dearest roommate a new boytoy. Preferably one who’s mute. If you have to go outside of our species to do that, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Arcas's laugh carries Orson away from them and towards Galen’s lab, where he shovels down a heated ration packet that Galen finds stowed in his desk. Orson feels an exhaustion set in, a pure relief of energy course through him while a lean-faced female cadet carries on a conversation with Galen beside him. Orson eventually slips back towards his dormitory, forgetting the way several times, as though he were drunk.

Crawling into bed is nearly orgasmic, his bare feet slipping against the fresh sheets, sore eyelids closing. He can sleep through afternoon block—Wys will go to flight practice after his classes end and stay in the pilot’s loungeroom until curfew and his professors won’t care enough to tell Reswatch to hunt him down again. If they do, Pysclla’s probably still occupied with Lieutenant Governor Tarkin and she’s the only one who carries the override keys.

_Tarkin_

The name is sharp, ascetic, as elegant as the man it belongs to. Orson hears his voice echo in his memory, tastes the rich “boyhood” over and over until he realizes that he’s grown hard against the mattress, heart pounding with adrenaline once more.

Orson shifts with a broken whimper, sliding off his trousers. As he sits up to unbutton his tunic, he catches a flash of his face in the mirror on the door.

His breath stills as he sees a fervor identical to Tarkin’s in his own eyes.

 

+

  
The sky is still clinging to the last touches of light when Orson is awakened by the heat of a body against his. He shifts indulgently, half-imagining the bulk beside him is Tarkin’s while being fully aware of who it belongs to.

“Orson,” Galen whispers against Orson’s bare chest, his voice nearly frantic. “I had to see you.”  
  
The kiss is madness colored by Orson’s fear, his sudden need to be as close to Galen as possible.

Orson has seen Galen naked a thousand times during their nineteen years of something like friendship, in public freshers after conditioning classes and writhing in his bed alike. He watches as Galen undresses without ceremony, throwing his undershirt and briefs into the laundry chute before tossing a private little smile towards Orson. The dark hair that litters his body is unappealing, the tiny curve of fat against his hip when he curls against the headboard unsightly. Galen is suddenly too broad, too similar to Orson’s own build to be arousing, and Orson cannot help but look away.

Galen wraps around him, familiar as his own skin. “Sweetheart, what is it?”

Orson kisses him as nastily as he can, tongue and lips wild in frustration. He is powerless to articulate himself further, can’t bring himself to sort out the sheer strength of the reaction Tarkin had wrought from within him. As Galen gasps into the kiss, Orson feels the striking urge to claim him, possess him in any possible way he doesn’t already. Orson pulls away quickly, a hot bloom of arousal forming in him at the sight of Galen before him, pink and soft and ruined.

Galen laughs against his mouth, gently places a hand upon his hardening cock. “I was hoping we could try it tonight. Penetration, you know. I’ve prepared.”

Orson snorts, pats Galen’s belly not unkindly. “Of course you have.”

“Let me just get ready.” Galen’s voice is a soothing hum, as though Orson is the one who could experience pain from this act. He fishes two barriers and a bottle of something Orson hopes isn’t a chemical from the lab that will turn his cock fuel-efficient from out of his schoolbag before tossing it on the ground.

Galen unwraps one barrier, trying not to laugh again as he rolls it methodically onto his fingers.

“I’d put the other one on you but,” Galen pauses, dribbling the slick fluid onto the latex and spreading it absentmindedly, “I’m going to be preoccupied in a moment.” He passes the bottle to Orson, who manages to break the seal and slide the barrier on without incident. The lubricant is cold, clinical in the uniformity with which it spreads. Orson feels himself grow harder as he imagines Tarkin performing this ritual, stroking himself towards readiness.

Galen moans beside him, fingers inside himself. “I’ve got three now. Can you hand me that pillow?”

Orson’s mind contracts until all he can remember is the anger in two pairs of blue eyes. “Turn around. Ass up.”

Galen obeys, his fingers tucked into a soft fist around his own cock. “I—Sweetheart…”  
  
Orson sinks slowly in, choking back a sob of pleasure and need that won’t be fulfilled by this. As that knowledge settles in, an arrogance rises in Orson that makes him bare his teeth against Galen’s ear.

“I’m going to fill you up, Galen. You’ll be full up with me.”

Galen cries out against Orson’s pillow, wriggles his hips and nearly makes Orson echo him. Instead, he thrusts deeper, pulls back slightly, repeats until he feels himself close to climax. _Tarkin knows this rhythm, Tarkin must have—_

“I-I love you,” Galen shudders when he feels him seize with it, holding Orson’s fist palm against his mouth as he follows with two hot, fast bursts. His face is wet when he leans sleepily upwards for a kiss, his eyes warm and sated.

Here, buried in the grating odor of nervous sex, Orson is faced with the realization that Galen is as empty a victory as failure has been a threat.

 

+

  
There is no exact moment when Orson decides to fight against his failure, against the expectations every one of his professors have come to have for him. He wakes up with his alarm the next morning, dresses, and goes to breakfast, following the routine he’s observed off and on for the past four years of his life. His mind is quiet, steady with a resolve he’s never felt before as he eats his eggs, sips from Galen’s mug of tea. He is silent in his classes, following the words and figures he’s instructed to with little difficulty and not once raising his hand for permission to leave.

Orson repeats this pattern for an interminable amount of days. There is something predatory in this observation, this patience, and Orson comes to thrive in it. He’s always had the ability to discern people past their surface actions, but it is revolutionary for him to see his professors as anything other than highly detailed, irritating droids. Proosnik hides behind an austere anger, loneliness dragging behind him like an especially long cloak. Gnoki misses active duty, itches to theorize about how and why the next galactic conflict will begin. Even his tense, terse Aeronautics professor is desperate to talk about their research, hands waving like sleek feathers in a mimicry of flight.

Orson spends hours in their offices and classrooms and lounges, drinking in every tilt of their heads, unraveling their intricacies under the cover of insomnia. It stuns Orson every time, how willing these beings are to overlook his past transgressions if only he is eager to learn their material and repair their image of both themselves and him in the now.

It is through knowing his enemies that Orson comes to know his friends as well. He trades time alone in their shared room for piloting technique lessons from Wys, continues to pay Arcas with the strokes and kisses Wys is reluctant to give him in exchange for drafted essays in Advanced Core Literature. When Orson approaches Galen one day, the heat of Arcas’s mouth wiped from his lips, and asks for help with his conceptualization of intra-galactic energy transmission, it is worth the indulgent smile for the shiver of Tarkin’s imagined drawl after they are finally placed together in the same block of science classes the rising semester.

Orson watches, separated from himself, as he rises through his determination to become, if not the Academy’s finest scholarship recipient, then at least one worthy of the effort expended. But Orson knows that cannot live in numbers and theories, wouldn’t survive interminable years discussing formulas and abstractions the way Galen seems programmed to while teaching brats on Grange. When discussions trail invariably towards this preferred outcome, Orson simply smiles.

“It would be an honorable path, though one I haven’t decided fully upon yet.”

For as Orson grows more successful, he grows hungrier. The emptiness within him expands into the shadows of its edges, a chasm he relishes, feeds with high marks and the press of Galen’s tongue against his cock. The early hours that once haunted him forfeit into allies, allowing him time to feverish think, memorize, and design with a passion Orson remembers faintly from his life as a nerfherder’s child, when this passion had been called only _more_.

 

+

  
Dean Pysclla’s figure towers over Proosnik’s even from where she stands in the doorway, mouth pressed and lekku slack along her neck. Orson knows that he has little enough to fear beyond smoking or noise reprimands but the sight of her violet eyes trained on him still sends a shiver down his spine.

“Lieutenant Governor Tarkin is very interested to meet several of our most promising cadets enrolled in the Futures Program,” she says directly to Orson, her tone practiced, bland. “You have qualified, Cadet Krennic. Follow me, quickly now.”

There is nothing for Orson to do but obey, no way of communicating the thrill of his deepest wish materializing as though today were sacred, deserving of this honor that had passed over the agonizing stretch of days before it. Their walk is terse and overlong at the same time, too brief to prepare his words properly and yet time-consuming enough to allow a flow of nausea to roil and root deep in his belly.

Tarkin stands firmly before Pysclla’s office door, perfectly unchanged in face and figure. It is as though he is a paused holovid or a Jedi in meditation, waiting three years for Orson to mature into a man worthy enough to approach him.

“Sir,” he sighs from between slick lips before he even stops and salutes into parade rest.

Pysclla is too busy preening to notice the obscenity. “Now, Cadet Krennic is quite the success story. Brought in from a scholarship on Grange, misbehaved so badly during his lower years that he was almost tossed out a dozen times, and yet has risen to the top ten of his graduating class. I’ve been told that he has a particular knack for applied physics.”

Tarkin’s mouth creases in a mimicry of a polite smile. “Fine work. Now, your office would be a suitable place for this interview. I trust you won’t mind me utilizing it?”

“Of course not, Lieutenant Governor. Feel free.” Pysclla’s lekku twitch as she keys in the code, and Orson knows he doesn’t imagine the disapproval that flickers across Tarkin’s face.

“Here you are. Please, make yourself comfortable and connect to my com link when you’ve finished.”

Tarkin sits down easily into Pysclla’s chair and too soon she has bowed her exit, dissolved into footsteps fading down the hall. Orson swallows, meets Tarkin’s eyes as he lower himself onto his knees. The carpet grates against his trousers as he crawls up to Tarkin, easing himself into the moment and out of his own thoughts. He has spent years awake, preparing for this moment in every conceivable fashion. He will have _more_.

“Please, Sir, let me suck your cock.”

Tarkin’s expression is perfectly neutral, that of a man unexcited by the prospect before him and yet not uninterested enough to ignore it.

The words Orson had expected to flow so naturally for the man who has been the central figure in his every moment do not come. “I can do it!” _Overeager, uncultured_. “Please, Sir. I want your cock and I want to do it-wanted to since—“

A raised hand stops Orson instantly, Tarkin’s expression horrible beyond description. Orson grabs it, fits it into a curved grasp around his chin and mouth. Orson breathes into Tarkin’s palm, hot and hard.

“The Twi’lek is wrong about you, boy. You still lack discipline.”

Orson chokes out a breath, unable to look away from the obscenity of Tarkin raising his robes while seated in Pysclla’s chair. Tarkin quirks his lips, fitting his thumb effortlessly into Orson’s waiting mouth.

“Whether you’re a disgrace, however, is rather more subjective.”

 

+

  
Orson kisses Galen hard when he goes to his room that night, pulling away only once Galen’s cheeks are rosy and his mouth is ripe, spilling forth questions as they settle into Galen’s bed.

“Where were you? You missed dinner-I thought Tarkin might’ve kidnapped you.” Galen’s voice is light, his neck tender where Orson absentmindedly strokes it. Galen, seemingly contented with kisses and Orson’s presence, doesn’t ask any further about the meeting with Tarkin as he slips his hand down Orson’s belly.

“Any reason you’re still here and not halfway to Grange?” Orson’s voice is carefully mild as he removes Galen’s hand and lays it on the quilt. “Wys left for Coruscant ages ago. Hope he brought his own air, unless he’s staying with Arcas again. Then I hope they choke to death.”

Galen’s chuckle is sleepy, sated. “Just come with me. You haven’t seen your mother in half a standard year. And doesn’t she always just come to Brentaal City for holidays? Let’s go home together this time.”

Orson pulls away from him, leaning against the closet door, away from Galen’s grasp. “Grange isn’t my home.”

Galen’s eyes snap shut. “Well, after we graduate, if you still intend to remain committed, I would like it to be.”

Orson’s words erupt forth from a huff of disdain. “No, Galen! You’re a damn genius, went to an off-world Republic Academy, and you want to move back to that shithole? That’s disgusting—you can’t, not you! Please, Galen.”

Galen shivers against his fury, but years of witnessing Orson’s rage allow Galen to hold his gaze as he spits out his response. “You…you did it with him, didn’t you? With Tarkin?”

Orson feels his voice crack before it courses out of him in a heady flow. “He didn’t force me, Galen. I wanted to. The power he has, it’s—“

“Please, don’t say any more. You’re implying that what you did was to further yourself and it’s not going to do that, Orson. You’re undermining your own brilliance and treating what we share together like a common commodity. I knew you were selfish, Orson, but I know you’re not this.”

Galen is struck silent by his own diatribe. Orson takes the opportunity to stare openly at him, studying the features as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror—the sharp brow that curves into round eyes as guileless as a domesticated animal’s, the gentle jaw, the single red blemish marring his cheek.

Finally, Orson looks at Galen’s lips, quivering under the press of his teeth. There is a vulnerability swarming upwards from his chest now, reaching out to grasp and meld with Galen’s matching softness. Galen drops his eyes, curls beneath the fraying quilt, and Orson has seen his fill.

He doesn’t love Galen, he knows, jaw taunt as he stuffs standard-issue underwear and soap and socks into his carry bag. If he loved him, he wouldn’t have spent years tracing the lines of Tarkin’s face into his memory, wouldn’t have even considered dropping to his knees for the man who has been more figure than flesh to him until today. Galen is a weakness, a bruise that can be pressed against until tears rise, a tender scrape that could breed into infection.

Orson’s steps are heavy in the rush of the hall, deaf to Arcas’s questions and loud with the knowledge that he will never again walk to class with Galen, will likely never see that mouth purse around his name in a smile. He lights a cigarette, causing the alarms to go off and the remaining students to evacuate into chaos. Orson thinks of the night Galen had spread himself open for the first time as he loses himself in it, the hot push of bodies empty when juxtaposed against the intimacy Galen thought he’d been sharing.

Finally, Orson breaks from the flood of cadets and darts into the pilot’s field, chasing the tarmac until it ends and he tumbles down a hill, running up and down its neighbors until he sees a transport station on the dark horizon. The cigarette remains lit, and he takes a long, hard drag.

Orson yelps as his knuckles sting with a fresh burn. He never did ash frequently enough.

 

+

  
The speeders and transports rush in a swarm above and below Orson at the transport dock. Coruscant is the most frightening thing he has ever seen, this planet-city that Tarkin thrives upon. He cannot stop looking at the enormity of the world he’s hunted down to form into his future, the brightness and ferocity and empty glow of billions of lights in the afternoon haze.

It isn’t difficult to find a holomap at the station he’s left and hail a speeder cab. The Republic’s main government offices are in this hemisphere, a few miles to the north and many more upwards to the towering height above him. It’ll cost him all of the money he’s saved every year for a decade, but he wrenches his fist open and hands the driver the money.

“Coruscant, Galactic City Level 5127, Eriadu Embassy Offices.”

“Ha, you’re on Coruscant, kid. Hop in.”

The speeder cab rises sharply, ascending between the skirmish of traffic assaulting it from every side.

The driver’s eyebrows wiggle in mock excitement. “Are you cold-calling? The Corellians, that’s how they handle all their job interviews, you know. Fat lot of good it’s done me.”

Orson gives him his best approximation of Tarkin’s cold, unflinching glare. The driver laughs.

An hour into the ride, the driver stops the cab and flicks on the lights beside Orson. “Guess I can tell you now that a group fare with the interns would’ve been a quarter of the cost if you’d just waited for the next UniCor transport,” he says casually, the blue-grey leather of his skin warm where it brushes Orson’s wrists.

The Eriadu embassy itself is true to its destination on the map, a sweeping platform of angles rough against the smoking skyline. Orson slips past the secretary droid’s detectors, ducking to move next to a service droid until he is out of her line of sight. The humans who occupy the building don’t offer him a second glance, floating by in wide-skirted gowns and neat robes cut along the contours of their bodies. As Orson boards the elevator, bound upwards towards FLOOR 260 OFFICE 378-LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR TARKIN, his legs and hands begin to shake.

Orson follows the trail of numbers towards the inevitable 378, stopping at parade rest on sheer instinct and pressing the com link button before he can allow himself regret.

_“Sir, I sucked you off in my dean’s office on Brentaal and now I don’t know what I should do because nothing I was doing before meeting you was worth the breath it took to do it?”_

_“You gave my life purpose after you looked at me in the hallway three years ago when I was called a disgrace and if you abandon me back in that trap I swear I’ll jump off of the embassy building without further provocation?”_

Orson trembles as the door slides open, too preoccupied with his mental image of Tarkin resting neatly behind a desk until it is too late and Arcas stands before him instead, flushed and startled and reeking of sex.

Orson will never remember the exact details of the moments afterwards, will always rely upon Tarkin to recall his exact actions whenever he asks to hear it told again over the coming years. He simply knows that Arcas’s throat is beneath his teeth and gone in an instant, ripped out and spat onto the pretty line-work that decorates Tarkin’s floor.

Galen swarms his mind, spreads through his blood and seeps onto Arcas’s uniform. Orson tears it off, scatters the fabric and makes Galen tut over his carelessness. Orson feels Galen’s bottom lip split between his teeth as he rips Arcas’s off, faintly sees it land beside the remains of his throat. A whisper of Galen’s smile is hidden behind it and so Orson smashes in Arcas’s teeth. He hears Galen moan and he can no longer bear it, ripping the bitterness and warmth of Arcas’s tongue free from his mouth. Finally, wet with desperate tears, his own eyes scan Tarkin’s face.

Tarkin remains silent, motionless.

The intrigue written across his features is enough of a catalyst to drive Orson further. He grabs a handful of Arcas’s hair and drags the gentle waves and the attached scalp free from his skull, free of the slide of Galen’s hair against his fingers as he presses it into Tarkin’s hand. Tarkin studies it for a moment before he rises from his desk and brushes his lips upon Orson’s feverish cheek, dropping the scrap of Arcas he holds onto the floor.

“There will be another one arriving in several minutes, also from the Academy on Brentaal.”

Tarkin kisses him on the mouth then, and Orson feels his body scream, his mind soar with the power and the potential of this, of what they hold here. He softens his mouth and lets Tarkin devour him, yields himself to this perfect need.

Orson pulls away the moment he feels himself about to spend and shakily grins into the kiss, teeth and blood and fulfillment. “No, there won’t be.”

Tarkin growls against his quivering lips. “I’m going to enjoy you, my boy.”

  
+

 

The silence is a third presence in the white glow of Tarkin’s apartments, a fragile hum of energy reflecting off of the monochromatic rooms, the sweeping transparasteel of the windows. Darkness has long settled in on this side of Coruscant, the lights of speeders dimmed where Tarkin observes them below, wearing the same sleek robes he’d dressed in after he’d fucked Orson awake, when he’d shoved the laundered academy uniform at him without a word. Orson can still smell the lavender and myrrh washed into the fabric, unaffected by hours upon the floor of Tarkin’s private transport.

Orson sits in the sweep of the main living space, his back gently concave in the transparasteel’s reflection. He catches Tarkin’s eyes briefly before flicking on a holoscreen a meter away. Lariyah Wrytilla’s face fades into view, authoritative without austerity, tight dark curls pressed around her forehead like a circlet.

“Don’t, boy.” Tarkin’s voice, even from a distance, is a whisper against his ear, hot and inviting. Orson bites the inside of his cheek, feels his chest tighten with anticipation.

“Sir, I just want—“

Orson is cut off by the buzzing of a droid accompanying a voice in the lobby behind them.

“Lieutenant Governor, sir?”

Tarkin leaves the holoscreen on, waving the droid away and offering Wrytilla a place upon one of the sculpted durasteel benches that Tarkin seemed to favor so. He settles beside Orson once more, the low hovertable settled between them and Wrytilla’s unwavering gaze.

“I’m flattered by your choice of news station,” Wrytilla gestures to the holoscreen currently playing an image of her own face above a scrolling translation linkbox. Nothing of the tabloid vulgarians clings to her; she is bereft of the gushing of the Zeltrons and the slippery praise of the Chadra-Fans that wait outside of Tarkin’s villa, unaware of their departure. A detached sort of kindness flickers across her face as she reaches for Orson’s hand. The skin that ghosts along his palm reminds Orson of the bouquet of gossamer feathers that rests at the pinnacle of Tarkin’s headboard, still floating in the stillness beneath an empty bed.

_“Coruscant News Now brings you an update on the attempted assassination of Lieutenant Governor Tarkin by Separatist rebels.”_

Tarkin’s grip is firm when he takes Wrytilla’s hand, the veins along his bared wrist cracks against the sinew lining them.

“Welcome, Ms. Wrytilla.” Tarkin’s mouth darts into an agreeable smirk. “Your expertise is well-noted both on Coruscant and beyond. Many of my oldest friends speak highly of you.”

“A pleasure, Lieutenant Governor,” Wrytilla’s eyes dart to Orson, blank. “I trust that you are ready for my questions at this time?”

Tarkin offers her an agreeable nod, shifting a hand into the gap between their bodies upon the bench. Orson blinks rapidly against the gaze that darts against him, feels a whisper of the energy that colors his first memories of Tarkin.

Wrytilla’s voice is low, molten in the whiteness and steel of the room. “I pride myself on capturing the dignity and truth of my subjects through their own words, not through deceptive holocam shots and fussy angles.”

“Please, ask myself or the boy here any questions you may have.”

Wrytilla smiles, formality creasing her lips.

_“As previously reported, the young cadet Orson Krennic of the Republic Military Academy on Brentaal helped prevent the assassination of Lieutenant Governor Wilhuff Tarkin of Eriadu two standard days ago.”_

“What is your relation to the convicted, Cadet Krennic?”

“Wys was my roommate at the Academy. I had never suspected him of holding Separatist convictions before.” A tap of Tarkin’s finger against the durasteel in a pensive gesture, and Orson’s eyes lower to the floor. “Him or Arcas. They seemed just like everybody else.”

_“Cadet Krennic rushed to Coruscant after he overheard Separatist plotting against Tarkin’s life taking place between two of his fellow cadets shortly after Tarkin paid a visit to examine the Academy’s Republic Futures program. While Lieutenant Governor Tarkin had already dispatched of the primary assassin, Arcas Ilhi, Cadet Krennic was able to aid in the capture and arrest of Wys Bannisuun, his accomplice. Cadet Krennic’s bravery and devotion to the protection of Eriadu’s top-ranking official has earned him much gratitude.”_

“Do you intend to return to the Academy following the holidays and your recovery period?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m suited for it, not after this.”

Tarkin cuts in. “He will be joining the Republic’s Corps of Engineers here on Coruscant. A noble path for a former cadet.”

“Ah, the RCE. Could you describe your plans for the work you’ll pursue within it?”

“My talents mostly center around applied physics. That’s what I was best in at the Academy.”

“As you can imagine, the boy is still quite shaken after rushing to my defense.” Tarkin’s mouth grates into a beatific expression that invites no pity.

“I’m finished, in any case,” Wrytilla replies steadily. One of her curls slips from behind her ear and Orson feels the childish urge to tug it.

“A rather short interview,” Tarkin’s voice is low, conspiratorial. “I worry that you lack enough material for a compelling addition to your coverage of my attempted assassination.”

Wrytilla’s smile is too genuine for someone unaware of a slight. “I’ve built my career around my efficiency and respect for privacy, Lieutenant Governor.”

Tarkin looks away from both Orson and Wrytilla, fingers curled against his cheek in a silent dismissal.

_“As we reported at 2200, Wys Bannisuun was sent by Lieutenant Governor Tarkin to Eriadu for sentencing. Officials are now reporting that he has been found dead in his cell, apparently having smashed his own skull in against a wall to avoid further questioning.”_

“Thank you for your time.” Wrytilla says after a moment, bowing her head sharply. “Lieutenant Governor, Cadet Krennic.”

_“As such, no further enemies to the Republic have been connected to the attempt on Lieutenant Governor Tarkin’s life.”_

Tarkin’s expression is unyielding even after the doors have slid shut and Orson has brought him a brandy, neat. Tarkin presses his shoulder and Orson sinks to his knees before him, tries out a smoldering look as he turns to slide Tarkin’s robes aside.

He catches a glimpse of an image on the holoscreen behind him. Wrytilla’s face and linkbox have disappeared, melded into a holopic. Orson whimpers as he takes Tarkin’s cock into his mouth.

“Want your cock, Sir,” he murmurs as he pulls himself back, lips glossy, mouth set.

_They are posed on the receiving balcony of Tarkin’s villa, long since scrubbed of blood and seed and Wys’s sick, dignity itself captive around them. The sunset across the Great Western Sea catches against the glow of Orson’s skin, creamy, tender where the borrowed robes expose it._

Tarkin strokes his hair, thumbs his nose. “Good boy, now. Have your fill.”

_Tarkin is clasping Orson’s hand, his mouth a tight, satisfied smile brought forth from partaking in an honoring ceremony witnessed only by two picservice droids, the superimposed crowd faded into perfect chiaroscuro behind them._

Orson swallows greedily when Tarkin finishes, his throat pleasantly thick as it settles within him. He slides down to rest his cheek against Tarkin’s knee, whimpering as he finally takes himself in hand. The news has long begun another story, the volume muted as Tarkin sips his brandy. Orson’s eyes flutter shut, listening to the click of teeth upon glass, the steady murmur of Tarkin’s body above him. He can still picture the fading brilliance of the sun kissing against the water, the clean sharp scent of it that had made his eyes burn. He hears in Tarkin’s breath the the hum of the droids charged with witnessing their charade. Orson shudders into Tarkin’s unyielding knee as he climaxes, victorious in his deception, bright in his mind’s eye.

_Beside him, Orson’s own smile is unaware and dazzling, his eyes false with hope._

 

+

**Author's Note:**

> -I began drafting this fic in October. I tried to stick as closely to canon as I could after the release of Catalyst, replacing the original setting on Corellia with Grange and Brentaal. This fic can thus be taken as the beginning of the events that would lead to Quite Incidental, a re-interpretation of _Catalyst’s_ descriptions of Krennic and Galen’s Academy years, or just manipulative Tarkin porn. Pick one or more at your pleasure.  
>  -This fic begins in 32 BBY and ends in 25 BBY, 3 years before the Clone Wars begin.  
> -The feathers above Tarkin’s bed are a trophy from the early stages of his EU slaughter of the Omwati. They belonged to a particularly brilliant and uncooperative philosopher.  
> -The pun in “Coruscant News Now” was absolutely intentional.  
> -Krennic’s mention of Chadra-Fan reporters was a nod to Intwing Sluice of Kylux fic fame.


End file.
